Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching

Department of English Studies, Faculty of Pedagogy and Fine Arts, Adam Mickiewicz University, Kalisz
SSLLT 9 (2). 2019. 259-261
http://dx.doi.org/10.14746/ssllt.2019.9.2.1
http://pressto.amu.edu.pl/index.php/ssllt

Editorial
The second 2019 issue of SSLLT brings together six papers, all of which report
empirical studies dealing with different aspects of teaching and learning addi-
tional languages in various contexts, and it also includes two book reviews. In
the first contribution, Alastair Henry combines Hermans’ (2008) concept of the
dialogical self with the tenets of complex dynamic systems theories (Hiver & Al-
Hoorie, 2016) to investigate the developing professional identity of a preservice
teacher of English during the practicum in a school in western Sweden. Using a
combination of intra-personal data in the form of semi-structured interviews
conducted before and after the practicum as well as inter-personal data in the
form of forum postings and a stimulated recall discussion of a lesson taught by
the participant, Henry shows that the construction of teacher identity entails
interaction between present experiences and the imagined self. In the subse-
quent paper, Anne Huhtala, Anta Kursiša and Marjo Vesalainen seek to identify
the motives driving 51 Finnish university students to learn foreign languages
other than English, in this case French, German and Swedish, adopting as a the-
oretical framework Dörnyei’s (2009) theory of the L2 motivational self-system.
Qualitative analysis of the narrative reflections written by the participants re-
vealed that although the initial decisions to engage in language learning may be
driven by social pressure, or the ought-to self, in the course of time it is the ideal
self and the L2 learning experience that start to play the dominant role.
The next two papers are concerned with language learning strategies, a
field that has been able to withstand severe criticisms in the last two decades
or so (Dörnyei & Ryan, 2015). First, Richard LaBontee reports a validation study
of a data collection instrument intended to tap into the use of vocabulary strat-
egies in the process of learning Swedish as an additional language. The data col-
lected from 182 adult participants served as a basis for the development of a
taxonomy in which the strategies for learning vocabulary were divided into the
following six categories: memorization strategies, depth enhancing strategies

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(use), association-based strategies, depth enhancing strategies (sources), self-
regulation and reflection strategies, and lexical information strategies. Second,
Hezi Y. Brosh employed questionnaires and interviews to elicit preferences con-
cerning the use of language learning strategies from 120 students of Arabic, all
of whom were speakers of English. It was found, among other things, that while
the advanced participants primarily opted for interaction with teachers, speak-
ing, using flash cards or working individually, the beginners were more in favor
of grammar and working in small groups.
In the next paper, Kim McDonough and Masatoshi Sato set out to examine
how the performance of information exchange activities focusing on relative
clauses impacted the accuracy and fluency with which 37 learners of English in
Chile produced the targeted structure. The analysis of pretest and posttest
scores on oral interactive tasks revealed that while the practice in which the
students had engaged led to gains in accuracy, as reflected in the smaller num-
bers of errors committed, the fluency, measured in terms of the number of
pauses, false starts and self-corrections remained unaffected. In the last empir-
ical study, Jan Vanhove investigated the extent to which the presence of met-
alinguistic knowledge about substandard L1 gender assignment affects its use
as a source of transfer. The analysis of the data obtained from 45 speakers of
Belgian Dutch who were assigned to three conditions differing in the amount of
metalinguistic knowledge available demonstrated that the influence of the
standard variety trumped the impact of the experimental manipulation. Finally,
Joanna Rokita-Jaśkow and Mirosław Pawlak provide reviews of volumes dedi-
cated to teaching global English at primary level and the development of pro-
nunciation in English-medium instruction courses, respectively.
I am certain that the studies reported in the six papers as well as the two
book reviews will provide food for thought for the readers and inspire them to
follow up on these or similar lines of inquiry. This is because the development
of teacher professional identity, the identification of factors which motivate
learners to engage in the study of languages other than English, the use of learn-
ing strategies, the implementation of interactive activities, the impact of met-
alinguistic information, teaching English to primary school students and pronun-
ciation instruction are all areas that are relevant to our understanding of how
languages are taught and learned.

Mirosław Pawlak
Adam Mickiewicz University, Kalisz, Poland
State University of Applied Sciences, Konin, Poland
pawlakmi@amu.edu.pl

260
References

Dörnyei, Z. (2009). The L2 motivational self system. In Z. Dörnyei, & E. Ushioda

(Eds.), Motivation, language identity and the L2 self (pp. 9-42). Bristol:
Multilingual Matters.
Dörnyei, Z., & Ryan, S. (2015). The psychology of the language learner revisited.
New York: Routledge.
Hermans, H. J. M. (2008). How to perform research on the basis of dialogical self
theory? Introduction to the special issue. Journal of Constructivist Psychol-
ogy, 21(3), 185-199.
Hiver, P., & Al-Hoorie, A. H. (2016). A “dynamic ensemble” for second language
research: Putting complexity theory into practice. Modern Language Jour-
nal, 100, 741-756.

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